This very good blog article is on Arcade games making a comeback thanks to the Nintendo Switch. Written by none other then Emily Rogers aka Arcadegirl64. And for those that do not know what she is she was best known for doing reliable leaks on the Nintendo Switch back when it was still code named the NX back in 2016. And the Article makes lots of good points about Arcade games making a comeback thanks to the Nintendo Switch. Here are some noteworthy points she makes.

It talks about why people are so found of the Sega Dreamcast with its Arcade games at home.

Talks about the recent Nintendo Direct with Nintendo Arcade games coming soon to the system.

Talks about the social aspect with Arcades.

Talks about Nintendo with its social roots compared to Microsoft.

Talks about Hamster Neo Geo Arcade Archives support, along with the amount of Fighting games/SHUMPS on the console.

Also Mentions about Namco Museum for the System being related with the Arcade trend.

And mentions about how ARMS is basically the type of arcade game that Sega would have made in the early 2000’s.

Arcades are designated places where people go to socialize and play games. They still exist, although many that survived did change dark hangouts of action games to the brightly lit family entertainment redemption centers. Watching other people play skeeball was never as interesting as gathered around Dragon's Lair watching someone play.

What she is talking about is not arcades but just 'local multiplayer'. That the Switch continues a line of Nintendo products that accommodates local multiplayer. The WiiU was their outlier here, with the single gamepad and the idea of 'asymmetric gameplay' which never bore fruit. The Switch is a step back toward symmetric local multiplayer, although its capped at two players.

Local multiplayer is one of those things that bring a lot of memorable fun, but from a business point has drawbacks - lost profit mostly, but also some tradeoffs in having a single console trying to process the game while still being held to high standards of framerate and resolution. I don't think Nintendo's coin-op roots - which were no where near as deep as Sega's - matter so much as its a logical way for a less graphically impressive console to bring a different flavor of gaming.

scotland wrote:Arcades are designated places where people go to socialize and play games. They still exist, although many that survived did change dark hangouts of action games to the brightly lit family entertainment redemption centers. Watching other people play skeeball was never as interesting as gathered around Dragon's Lair watching someone play.

What she is talking about is not arcades but just 'local multiplayer'.

That's not what Sonicx9 is talking about; not once does he say that "arcades" are making a comeback. He is correctly articulating the article's point about arcade games, "arcade" in this case meaning the style of games that arcades fostered. Shallow, social fun. Street Fighter II is Street Fighter II, whether you play it at a cabinet, on an SNES, or through the Virtual Console. That the Switch seems to be fertile ground for this type of entertainment is laudable, and I hope that this trend takes hold on a larger scale.

In many ways, Switch is the modern equivalent of a two-player arcade machine that you can take on-the-go.

When you observe old photos of arcades from the 1980’s-90’s, you typically see a group of young happy people, huddled around an arcade cabinet, and staring at a small screen. Fast forward to 2017: we see a group of young happy people, huddled around a small screen, each holding Joy-Cons in their hands.